To Wiki or Not to Wiki:
Using Online Collaborative Tools in Teaching Writing

by Jasmine Lellock

Jasmine Lellock is a graduate student in the
English Department at University of Maryland. She will be presenting
her classroom research on "Using Wikis to Facilitate Collaborative
Student Learning" at the upcoming Lilly East Conference on Teaching
and Learning at University of Delaware this month.

Most educators agree that student collaboration
and peer learning are valuable pedagogical strategies, yet such
projects are often a source of frustration. Students have
conflicting schedules and personalities. Tracking and assessing
individual contributions presents another problem. Collaborative
online technologies like wikis and blogs offer a way to overcome
these issues.

Wikis are especially useful for writing
instruction. A dynamic and comfortable forum in which students can
communicate with each other, wikis offer opportunities for improving
student writing through modeling, collaboration, and revision.
Indeed, using wikis in writing instruction aligns with the stated
outcomes of the First Year Writing program. For example,
collaborative wiki projects can assist in teaching students how to
"locate [their] argument in a broader conversation" and to "define,
address, and appeal to [their] target audience." These tools can
also enhance peer review skills, another student learning outcome
that appears on the syllabi of many writing courses. Further, wikis
help students think about writing as process, and they give students
a sense of purpose. Because their work is semi-public, students feel
more accountable for its quality. Finally, their collaborative
nature encourages classroom community and develops their sense of
civic engagement.

....[a] concern that students have with
collaborative work is that their individual contributions will not
be appropriately noticed or assessed...

Despite these and other obvious benefits, the
potential of opensource, collaborative technologies to reshape
writing pedagogies has not yet found its outlet in many writing
classrooms. One reason for this notable absence is the fear that the
technology is too difficult to learn or that it will require more
time and effort than it is worth. Another common concern is how to
deal with students’ anxiety about making their writing public and
their concern with appropriate assessment of collaborative work.
With planning and training, however, instructors and students can
learn to navigate this rather straightforward tool and to identify
strategies that complement their teaching style and meet their
pedagogical goals.

Because their work is semi-public, students feel
more accountable for its quality.

I first decided to explore wiki writing as part
of my English 101 class. In conjunction with the First Year Writing
Program’s emphasis on civic engagement, the course theme that I
developed was "The Public I." To accommodate this theme, I wanted to
find a way to demonstrate the ways in which writing could be a
public process and product, as well as to encourage group learning.
The wiki, then, was an ideal tool for me. In other 101 classes, I
had taught rhetorical analysis in a series of journals. This time, I
designed a collaborative essay project in which students taught each
other the terms and strategies of rhetorical analysis and worked
together to analyze a text.

Communicating via the wiki discussion feature, students began the
project by selecting a pair of political speeches that their group
wished to analyze and compare. Their second task was to post to the
wiki individual responses to the speeches; thus, the initial
invention stage of composition encouraged individual reflection.
Because their first shared writing was in the form of a low-stakes
task, this method also mitigated some of the stress of exposing
their writing to the public eye. Another concern that students have
with collaborative work is that their individual contributions will
not be appropriately noticed or assessed; this assignment helped
allay some of those anxieties.

The next step in the process was for students to
prepare a group presentation in which they presented their initial
observations to the class as a whole and then solicited ideas and
feedback from their peers. After receiving input from their peers
during the group presentations, students revised their individual
responses to the speeches. Often, students complain that work on
discussion boards or other electronic spaces is simply busy work
that doesn’t relate to the issues of the class. This presentation
helped to bring into the classroom the work that went on outside of
class in the space of the wiki, demonstrating its centrality to
class activities. As with the initial wiki posting, the group
presentation also reinforced the value of writing as a process and
as a collective learning endeavor.

The final stage was composing a collaborative
essay, to be assigned a collective grade according to the
First

Year Writing grading standards. Students
drafted and revised their essays on the wiki, modifying their peers’
contributions and using the discussion feature to ask questions and
post updates. More than any of the others, this task unearthed
student anxieties. The major concern, to my surprise, was not fears
about making their early, less-polished drafts public, but rather
concerns about intellectual property and fair assessment. They were
nervous about modifying the writing of their peers, so they wanted
to divide and conquer—to assign a section to each group
member—rather than to compose and revise collaboratively the essay
as a whole. In class discussions about the process, students asked
questions such as: "How will I earn credit for my writing?" and
"What if my contributions are good, but the essay as a whole is
not?"

They were nervous about modifying the writing of
their peers, so they wanted to divide and conquer—to assign a
section to each group member—rather than to compose and revise
collaboratively the essay as a whole.

These lines of inquiry are of course valid
concerns. I attempted to address these issues by reminding students
that wikis record their own history, making it possible for me to
view all prior drafts of the essay and discover exactly what each
student contributed. I also commented regularly on their writing on
the wiki, just as I might do with a series of drafts, in order to
provide more direction and reassurance. The wiki provided a unique
opportunity for me (and for them) to watch their progress and to
learn about their process. As a result, I was able to provide more
regular and focused feedback to students and to tailor my classroom
instruction to their needs.

I have used this project for two classes,
modifying it each time. When I next implement collaborative wiki
writing, I hope to work through in greater depth the issue of
assessment. Another area I wish to improve is helping students feel
more comfortable revising the work of their peers. Despite student
concerns about the collaborative nature of the assignment, however,
the wiki essay is often the most successful one in each student’s
portfolio. Further, students often identify the wiki project in
their course evaluations as the most useful assignment. While
implementing wikis in writing instruction requires some careful
planning, in my experience, the pedagogical benefits outweigh its
drawbacks.